A Tale of Two Hermits
by SpacePrius
Summary: Lycoris was a man trying to do his job. Build some war machines for the war effort, it was really that simple. The people around him though, that was a different story...
1. Part I

"Come _ooooooon_ Lycoris, let go a bit. This is our chance to celebrate don't be a party pooper." Persica said, putting her ears down like a sad puppy.

"No, this beer is literally called " _Jauche_ ," sewage, why the fuck would I drink that?" Lycoris replied, putting his hands on his face. Persica was clearly getting on his nerves.

"It isn't _thaaaaaat_ bad, give it a _try_."

War was waging around the world, with everyone out for everyone else's throat, it was a great time to be in the arms business. While nations fought wars of death and destruction, these arms companies fought in wars of capital, trying to make more money than everyone else and establish their place in the new world order.

A company named Sangvis Ferri, a new upstart in the arms business, had quickly established a large market share with their cheap, yet highly effective Jaeger sniper T-dolls. This concerned the Old Guard, led by the mega-corporation IOP, who have struggled to compete with the superior numbers and reliability of the Jaeger dolls.

When IOP researchers discovered a series of papers written by a group called 90wish that all changed. The papers published by this group were nothing short of brilliant, however, their information networks confirmed that the group had fallen apart due to internal power struggles.

After a long and exhausting search, they managed to track down two former members, Persica and Lycoris, and managed to get them under their payroll. After a daring extraction by a mercenary named "Kryuger," the two researchers were extracted from Russia and brought to an IOP compound in what used to be Switzerland.

IOP now had their ace in the hole, their knights in shining armor, however, they never expected them to be so… eccentric.

They were in their brand new lab, provided by IOP themselves, it had all the equipment necessary to design, program, and manufacture new prototypes all on base. Persica had decided to celebrate while they waited for IOP to assign them dormitories.

Persica leaned onto Lycoris' shoulder with one of the beer cans in hand. She had an incredibly smug look on her face and her ears were perked up straight. The entire thing made Lycoris very uncomfortable.

"Come on Lycoris, give it a try."

Lycoris figured the only way she would leave him alone was if he drank the beer, it couldn't be that bad right?

"Fine." He said with a frustrated edge as he ripped the beer can from her hand.

Persica's face lit up, this seemed to please her greatly. She was dead set on getting him drunk, and this was the only alcohol they could get their hands on

Lycoris pulled the tab on the can and opened it with a hiss. Although he was hesitant, he was so angry he started chugging it immediately. He didn't care anymore, he just wanted her to leave him alone.

That decision was probably the worst decision he had ever made.

The second it touched his tongue he was overwhelmed with the strong taste of ammonia and other chemicals that could only be described as literal alcoholic urine. The overwhelming sensation caused his gag reflex to go into overdrive, and he immediately began coughing uncontrollably. The beverage was spilled all over the clean stainless steel lab table as he gagged and coughed. Persica let out a childish giggle as she watched him suffer. Was she some sort of sadist?

Once Lycoris finally regained his composure he looked to Persica with a death stare. He was filled with rage.

"WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT! IVE HEARD OF BEER TASTING LIKE PISS BEFORE BUT THAT ACTUALLY _DID_ TASTE LIKE PISS! ALCOHOLIC PISS! HOW DO YOU DRINK THAT SHIT!" He shouted.

"It doesn't taste that bad, it has _character_."

"CHARACTER MY ASS, DO YOU EVEN HAVE TASTE BUDS?"

"Calm down Lycoris I thought you were a man, but it turns out I have more balls than you do." Persica said with a montone, yet oddly girlish giggle.

With that Lycoris just gave up. It just wasn't worth it, the more he fought the worse it got, he would just wait until the IOP rep showed up to take them to their dorms. The more time he spent with Persica the more he was reminded of why 90wish fell apart. Everyone in that organization was clinically insane.


	2. Part II

Lycoris was walking through a small town. The trees were green, the sun was shining, there was not a cloud in the sky. He could see the townspeople running about their day, schoolchildren were giggling, couples were holding hands. Everything was peaceful. This was a happy existence. No wars, no 90wish hunting him down, _no Persica_. He really was happy.

"Hey, dumbass wake up."

What was that voice? It seemed to have come out of nowhere, yet it sounded familiar. Was he going crazy?

A swift punch to the jaw caused Lycoris to shoot up in his bed. It was a dream, figured. There was no way in hell he would ever be that happy. As his vision cleared up he was greeted with the sight of Persica standing beside his bed. Wait a minute…

"HOW THE FUCK DID YOU GET IN HERE."

"It was easy, took me all of 30 seconds. For future reference 1234 does not make for a good lock passcode."

Lycoris took a look at the alarm clock, it was 8:45, debrief was in 15 minutes. Shit.

The brass had decided that they needed a debrief from Persica, the Tactical Commander turned Mercenary Kryuger and himself. He still didn't know why; it didn't help that he had literally 0 idea what happened. The entire extraction was a mental blank for him. Regardless, being late on the first day was not the best plan.

Lycoris forgot about Persica for a moment and began to get dressed. He just put on the same stuff he wore yesterday, he didn't care about the beer stain on it, well it was really more of a urine stain now that he thought about it.

Persica was waiting for him in the kitchen when he was finished dressing, she seemed to be drinking coffee.

"I took the liberty of making you coffee, I also brought doughnuts."

This was too nice of her, she was planning something, he just didn't know what it was. Did she spike the coffee with LSD? Did the doughnuts contain a laxative? He really didn't have the time to discriminate, so he sat down and started eating.

The doughnuts were actually store bought and weren't that bad. The problems arose when he got to the coffee. It tasted like caffeinated water with sugar and creamer. He had no idea how she managed this, it was an automated coffee machine, it did everything for you. When he made coffee last night it tasted fine, what happened? The second it touched his tongue he spat it back out, all over Persica's face.

She didn't take it too harshly, she merely gave her usual monotone laugh. She clearly screwed with his coffee machine.

"Persica, what did you do to the coffee machine?"

"I made some upgrades," Persica replied with a dispassionate shrug.

"We will talk about this later we have like, 5 minutes to get to the meeting room."

"That we do, see you there Lycoris."

As she said that the hologram dispersed and the "Persica" was revealed to be a doll equipped with a holotransmitter. Lycoris sat there stunned for a bit before he realized he was running late and had no time to fume about this.

He made a mad dash out of his room for the conference room. A normal person would be able to make it in time, the conference room was right down the hall. Lycoris was no normal man. He made it about 50 meters before he started puffing. By the time he made it the final 50 meters to the conference room, he was exhausted. He was no athlete.

"I'm here." He said, bent over gasping for air.

"Hey, looks like the Amazing Flab is here, and right on time too." Said a gruff voice.

That gruff voice belonged to a man named Kryuger, he was the man who had extracted them from Russia. 90wish wanted Persica and Lycoris' heads, but IOP was paying the big bucks, and Kryuger was not going to let a few fancy T-dolls stop him from getting his paycheck. Oh no.

"Now that we are all here we can begin."

The man that voice belonged to was the CEO of IOP himself. He took the time out of his busy schedule to attend this debrief himself, well, by proxy of course. He was only there via a doll holotransmitter.

"Please begin your report Mr. Kryuger."

"Kindly."

Kryuger then pulled a very large briefcase up from the floor. He began to key in the combination lock before clicking it open. From the briefcase, he pulled nothing but a cigar, and a lighter.

He stuck the cigar in his mouth, lit it, and then put the briefcase back on the floor.

"My team and I went into 90wish controlled territory via helicopter at about 0400 hours. We had 5 choppers each carrying about 9 men. Before we even had the chance to land we lost 3 choppers to enemy AA fire. Those 90wish fuckers sure do know how to make an AA missile.

My chopper and another made it to the LZ intact, however, this hell was far from over. The second we got out of the chopper we were pinned down by enemy machine gun fire from all sides. Most of my remaining comrades were taken out in this gunfire, but not me. The second the guys next to me dropped dead, I grabbed their dead bodies and used them as human shields, leaving my own guns behind.

I charged the enemy machine gun position, and once I got close, I grabbed the gunner and started using the poor fucker as a club to bash in the heads of the other poor fuckers. My mighty battle cry sent most of them running for the hills but they could not outrun old Kryuger, hell no.

I used the doll to bash my way through hundreds of 90wish dolls until I got to the objective. Once I arrived I found Cat Girl and Potato Boy sitting in the panic room as expected. Cat Girl was drinking coffee at a table while Potato Boy cowered in the corner crying."

"Wait hold up, hold the phone here. You used a t-doll to bash your way through _hundreds_ of t-dolls? Also while i don't remember much about what happened I am certain that I wasn't _cowering._ " Lycoris interjected

"You were totally crying, it was kind of cute actually, like a sad puppy. When Mr. Kryuger came in there with that stiff t-doll I was very impressed, those weigh like 400 pounds and he was one handing it. Now shut up it's about to get good." Persica replied

"Once I got them extracted Potato Boy asked 'Where is everyone else' I replied that they were all dead and I was the only help they were gonna get.

Upon hearing that he started having a panic attack and started running off in a random direction screaming like a little girl. However, he only got about 200 meters before he passed out from exhaustion. I carried him on my back the rest of the way."

"HOLD UP I CAN RUN MORE THAN 200 METERS!"

"I would like to mention that Mr. Kryuger did not wear a shirt during any of this, and he carried your passed out ass all the way to the chopper. T _o be honest it was kind of hot_ ; I mean, shut up Lycoris you almost dropped dead running down the hallway." Persica said giggling a bit.

"DID I HEAR THAT RIGHT"

"I can confirm that I did not wear a shirt, shirts get in the way of mobility.

Anyway, since the original LZ was too hot, we had to move north about 2 klicks. However, there was one problem, an enemy tank column was in the way. I didn't have any weapons on me since I had abandoned mine at the chopper, so I checked Potato Boy's pockets for anything I could use.

All he had was a ballpoint pen.

Now a normal man would go 'Welp, we are fucked,' but not me, I took that ballpoint pen and within 15 minutes I had killed every single tanker and left every tank a pile of smoldering rubble. I wrote the combat entire report with that pen, using their blood as ink.

The rest of the mission was uneventful, and Potato Boy regained consciousness once we arrived back at base.

That Concludes my report."

Lycoris stood there with his jaw wide open. There was no way that was what happened, sure he didn't remember any of it, but that story was absolutely ridiculous.

The only thing that was more astonishing than that story was that nobody else seemed to think of it as all that ridiculous. Persica seemed to believe it, and the IOP execs were just writing down notes.

"Thank you Mr. Kryuger. Now Persica and Lycoris, we are giving you a blank check here for your research. We better see results, and soon. That will be all. Meeting dismissed." The hologrammed in IOP execs turned back into blank slate dolls leaving only Kryuger, Persica, and Lycoris in the room.

"I must be going, I have lunch with Hellian to celebrate another job well done. See ya around."

Kryuger then picked up his massive metal briefcase and high tailed it out of there. Persica picked up her binder and began making her way for the door, only stopping once in the doorframe.

"Come on Lycoris we need to get to work."

Lycoris shook himself out of the shock that Kryuger's ridiculous tale had caused him, and began to get up.

"Coming."


	3. Part III

It had been about a week since Persica and Lycoris had arrived at IOP, and oddly enough things had been going _well_ for once. He expected absolutely nothing to get done but they had been making good work. Persica was making great progress on a better mobility system based on artificial muscle polymers, and Lycoris was hard at work making a new AI package.

The only problem with what he was able to assemble so far was that it lacked any sort of improvisation or humanity. The problems with this are two-fold: for one, it made it much less effective in a situation where command is out of reach, basically rendering them useless. The second problem is that it made it harder for the human elements of a force to relate to the dolls. Sure this wasn't a big issue, but when you had to trust these things with your life, you better well feel like you can trust them.

He had done enough thinking for now, Lycoris finished his shitty coffee and made his way to the lab. It seemed Persica's modifications to his coffee machine randomly mixed the elements of the coffee to make something guaranteed to be awful. It might be too thin, too thick, too sweet, not sweet enough, almost completely unfiltered, it was basically impossible to guess what you would get any particular time you used it. That only added to the infuriation.

For whatever strange reason despite having put in 5 separate requests to have the thing replaced the piece of shit was still sitting there. He was half ready to barge into the quartermaster's office himself, but he wasn't _that_ irritated yet.

He walked up to the lab door, sliding his ID badge over the card reader. With a green flash and a beep the door opened and he entered the lab, ready to get to work. He expected to see something weird going on, but he did not expect to see Persica and Kryuger talking in front of a massive mainframe computer that looked like it wouldn't be out of place in the 1970s.

Lycoris made his way over, inspecting the massive machine which had been placed in the corner. All the text was in Russian, and a large bit of text on the side of it read OGAS.

"What the fuck is this thing?"

"Oh hi Lycoris, Mr. Kryuger just came back from a mission in Russia and brought this thing back with him, said he didn't know what it was so he wanted us to figure that out."

"Damn right, I just cleared out an old bunker crawling with 90wish dolls. I took all of them out single-handedly. Then, I finally got to the thing they were protecting, this massive piece of shit." Said, beginning another of his long winded questionably realistic stories.

"It's nice to see your stories don't get any more believable," Lycoris said with a sigh

"Since IOP didn't have a helicopter that could lift this thing I carried it all the way here on my back. I got from the Urals all the way back here within 48 hours."

"Do you honestly expect me to believe that Mr. Kryuger? This thing weighs like 10 tons, how the fuck do you expect me to believe you carried this on your back… Wait a minute, how did you even get this in here? I'm not even sure this would fit in the damn door."

"You're right, it didn't, I took a shortcut through the wall." He said, pointing to a massive, mainframe size hole in the back wall behind "OGAS"

Lycoris moved around to the side and saw a massive hole in the wall. The floor behind OGAS was covered in rubble, and he could see the 6 inches of concrete clearly. On the other side, there were a bunch of people gathered around who looked just as dumbfounded as he did.

This had to be some kind of prank Persica was playing on him. There was no way that man forced his way through 6 inches of concrete.

"When you are done gawking Lycoris I would like to get started on getting this thing functional."

"Oh yeah, ok."

Kryuger then began to make his way to the door, waving his hand as if to say "See ya later."

This left Lycoris and Persica alone to work on this thing themselves. Step one was to see if the thing turned on, the transport from Russia to Switzerland almost certainly damaged a few components, but it never hurt to just see if it would turn on before you popped it open.

After hooking up the computer directly to some exposed electrical cables left over from Kryugers blunt entrance, it seemed that it was working perfectly. The old CRT monitor started running down a series of diagnostics in Russian, and there seemed to be no problems so far.

Once it was finished, the computer displayed merely a question and a response field.

 _Hello. Where am I?_

 _L: IOP_

 _What in the name of Lenin is IOP?_

Seemed like they had an early AI on their hands, typing responses would get tiring after a while, Lycoris had a different plan.

"Persica can I get one of the T-Doll vocalization modules?"

"Sure." She replied, tossing one from the doll she was working on over.

Lycoris took a bit to jury-rig the module onto the old hardware. This thing was definitely ancient, at the very latest 1972. It had magnetic tape reels and loud magnetic drives abound. It also had more dust than his grandmother's bookshelf, which made it even harder to actually install the module.

Once it was installed he just had to jury-rig the AI's programming to interface with it, and like magic, the thing was done.

" _Ура́!_ It is good to have a voice again comrades! You don't know how long it has been since I have had a voice! However, it appears that I can't see anything. Would you mind telling me where I am?" Said the computer in a joyous, rather eccentric sounding Russian accent.

"An IOP Compound outside of Geneva." Lycoris replied

When he saw that it was an old Russian AI, he never expected it to pick such a stereotypical voice. He sounded like he would be more at home drinking vodka during The Battle of Stalingrad than in a computer system.

"This IOP? I still don't know what that is. I really don't care either, where is that "Kryuger?" I have seen many soldiers in my day but none matched his prowess! He would make Zhukov blush!"

"He left to go do something, don't know why don't really care." Persica said as she slid by in her office chair moving to another desk to continue her own work.

"A shame I tell you! A shame! I would love to share a vodka with that man!"

"You realize you are a computer right? You can't get drunk."

"That never stopped me before."

"I'm not even going to ask."

Lycoris spent the rest of the day asking the computer questions, however, most of them he refused to answer until he received "A good helping of Vodka." Lycoris, not knowing how to comply with this request, simply gave up after a while. He would figure out a solution the next day, for now he was tired.


	4. Part IV

"Comrade Lycoris! It is time to wake up, you still owe me that Vodka!"

Lycoris shot up in bed, where the hell was that damn voice coming from? It sounded like that damn Russian computer they had brought back yesterday. How the hell did it manage to get into his room?

He looked over at the clock, it was 4:00 AM, he must have been hallucinating, there was no way that this was anywhere near the time to wake up.

"I do not appreciate being ignored Comrade Lycoris." The voice continued.

So no, he wasn't going crazy, the computer had somehow managed to get into his room. He looked around and saw that the television had a flat waveform on it. Somebody had uploaded the damn AI to the compounds computer system.

"OGAS what the hell are you doing in my room, also, its 4:00 AM, what do you want?"

"Comrade Persica thought I would be lonely stuck in that mainframe, so she stuck me into the central computer. I must say it is nice to be able to see again. Comrade Persica also told me to wake you up at this time, something about 'Physical Training' with Comrade Kryuger."

"She probably told you that to fuck with me."

"I must say otherwise Comrade Lycoris, Comrade Kryuger is currently waiting outside your door. He seems rather impatient. He has already requested breaching charges so I recommend you get ready sometime in the next 15 minutes."

"Fuck. Wait, hold up, _breaching charges?_ "

"Yes."

Lycoris' eyes shot open as he leaped out of bed in a desperate attempt to get ready. He got dressed so quickly he ended up forgetting to double check that he was wearing his clothes right. He figured that he would invite Kryuger in for coffee before he blew the door open, it would also give him the chance to get an idea of what he was getting into.

He ran for the door, opening it to the sight of a bunch of guys in SWAT gear gathering around, probably waiting for the breaching charges. They were all armed.

"Hello there Mr. Kryuger! Would you like to come in for some coffee while I finish getting ready?" He said motioning for the man to enter.

"Hey there Potato Boy, your shirts on backward." Kryuger replied, shoving Lycoris aside as he and the 12 plus SWAT guys entered his rather cramped dorm.

Lycoris looked down at his shirt and quickly adjusted it in the doorway. He started up the coffee machine, before shoving his way through the crowd of people to brush his teeth. They were incredibly loud, and all carried live weapons. What the hell was this madman planning?

Once he got out of the bathroom, he noticed that the SWAT guys had already helped themselves to the coffee, they didn't seem to mind that it was somehow more clear than the tap water.

"Took you long enough, I could have gone to Moscow and come back in the time it took you to brush your damn teeth."

Lycoris just stared at him, dumbfounded. He took 2 minutes, just like anyone else. Could this man run at Mach 9?

"I've just been informed that you are here for 'Physical Training,' mind telling me a bit about it Mr. Kryuger?"

"Why I'd be happy to. The objective is to get to a flagpole 5km south from here and raise this flag. Until you have completed this objective, you will be tailed by these fine PMCs right here, and me, in an attack helicopter."

Lycoris had just taken a sip of the caffeinated water, that statement caused him to start choking on it. What the hell? He had to trudge through 5 kilometers of the Swiss Alps, in the middle of winter mind you, while guys with guns and an _attack helicopter_ chased after him.

"I assume they will be firing rubber rounds?"

"No, live rounds."

He was so fucked. _Live rounds_. Was Kryuger mental? What the hell was that supposed to accomplish? Getting him killed?

"Also you will have no equipment throughout this beyond your undergarments, it helps build tolerance for cold. Don't worry I'm not crazy, we will give you an injection that will prevent hypothermia before we send you off."

Oh great, that was a great consolation, he got to freeze his ass off _but at least he won't get hypothermia!_ As an added bonus he got to be fired at with live rounds! However, he did have a feeling that if he did not accept this offer, he would end up more dead than if he had.

Ten minutes later he was standing butt naked at the entrance to the compound. It was well below freezing, and the snow quite literally went up to his waist. He was so screwed. They had given him an hour head start, Lycoris was almost certain that wasn't enough.

Nonetheless, he began the long slow march through the snow. They would launch a flare when it was time for the hunt to begin, he didn't care, he just wanted this over with.

A small sphere with a screen on the front started hovering down beside him, a familiar voice emerged from it.

"Come on Lycoris, it's only a few feet of snow! That hasn't stopped anyone before!"

"I can name quite a few. Would you mind explaining this… drone thing."

"I decided to take a peek, I thought it might be amusing. I was right."

Lycoris just let out a long sigh before continuing forward, attempting to ignore Persica's heckling. There was not much else he could do really. Soon, he would have 12 SWAT guys and an attack helicopter on his ass. He didn't have time to get annoyed.

Soon enough, the flare was launched and the chase had begun. It wasn't long until the attack helicopter could be heard in the distance.

Lycoris figured he could use his one advantage, his hypothermic resistance, to avoid the helicopters thermal cameras. He could bury himself in the snow without much of an issue. However, he had to be careful to keep moving forward.

Those thoughts lasted about 5 seconds before he heard a crackle of electricity behind him and his vision went black.

He woke up in a hospital bed with a doctor sitting beside him. He had never met this doctor before, but apparently, she was the compounds head physician.

"How well did I do doc?" He asked

"I wasn't there, but apparently you made it 5 feet from the entrance in an hour. They were laughing the whole time."

"Well shit, that figures."

"I'll be honest I have never seen a person so out of shape in my life. I really think you need an urgent medical intervention."

"Tell me about it."


	5. Part V

It had been a week or so since Kryuger's "training session." Things had been oddly quiet since then, maybe this was the universe's way of repaying him for that torture session. Persica had been pulling all-nighters working on her new project, so she didn't have time to bother him, which had allowed him to continue working on the new AI architecture.

The discovery of OGAS put their AI research years ahead of Sangvis Ferri, not only did he have a functional emotion simulation, he showed unprecedented independence, which means that he can operate without the intervention of a human commander. These two together mean that not only are dolls easier to relate to, but they are also able to improvise beyond the plans set by commanding officers. This had the IOP suits shitting themselves dreaming of the money they could be making.

This development, once complete, would give IOP a massive advantage over Sangvis Ferri, meaning T-dolls can go from specialist roles with heavy supervision, to more general roles that require adaptability and independence to function properly.

There had been minor problems with the emotion buffer, which caused AI's to go insane if forced to go through intense emotional trauma, however, Persica put in a stopgap measure that put a hard cap on the emotional response to compensate. While it wasn't ideal, it worked well enough for soldiers. Now that the AI work was done Lycoris was using his budget for personal projects, at the present that being working on the emotion buffer.

Persica had been hard at work on prototyping the actual dolls, and rather suspiciously refused to let Lycoris look at it. She had put up a curtain around her work area and anyone approaching would be met with automated turrets.

Lycoris had seen her slipping in there with a bunch of random things, including for some reason a nun outfit. He had no idea what she was doing back there but he was scared. He had no reason to be scared, but knowing Persica it was impossible _not to be_.

Days passed, and he saw more and more weird items being brough back behind the curtain. A bible, a cross, a massive folder titled "Papal Decrees since 0 AD." What was she doing back there? They were supposed to make soldiers not priests, this seemed irrelevent. When he asked what she was doing she quoted a random bible verse and ran back behind the curtain. Some of the verses were completely nonsensical in context and gave little to no information on what she was actually doing.

One day, finally, when he entered the lab, the curtain was gone. Right where the curtain used to be sat Persica, sitting with her legs crossed, sipping coffee from some mug she got from Russia. Next to her sat something strange. It was a nun with cat ears. She looked somwhere between 13 and 16, had pruple eyes and long silver hair. She sat in a chair in prayer. Raising her head as he entered the room.

She stood up, bowing to him as he entered.

"Hello Dr. Lycoris, how are you today?" She said, in a soft, calming voice.

"Im doing fine, what were you doing right there?" He replied

"Why I was praying to our Lord Jesus Christ Dr. Lycoris, as all good Christians must!"

Lycoris was shocked. He was expecting something much worse, instead, he got a nun. He was expecting some sort of sadistic prankster that would make his life hell 24/7. He could deal with a nun.

The nun approached him, her walk was patient and elegant, much more so than her childlike body would indicate. As she approached he realized something. She was fucking massive. Lycoris was 6'3 and she towered over him like a giant. The proportions made her look like a cute yet unsettling theme park mascot.

Lycoris started to sweat profusely, he was reminded of bad memories at the theme park as a child. Soviet Land had a bad habit of giving kids PTSD, the guy in the big Stalin costume was a bit _too_ realistic. He started to slowly step backward trying to escape her.

"Do not fret Lycoris, I may be large but I am still a woman of the Lord!"

She closed the gap between them with ease, and she drew something out from behind her back. He had no time to realize what it was before he had a cream pie shoved in his face. He could not see it but he could hear the once soft and calm voice of the doll break out into childish laughter. He could hear Persica's childish giggle as well.

As Lycoris cleaned off his face and glasses he heard the door to the lab slide open, he was able to clean his glasses enough to see that it was their IOP supervisor. He had a young girl with him in an IOP uniform.

The young girl looked rather scared, she was probably somwhere about 12 or 13. She had big blue eyes and long brown hair tied back into a ponytail. She looked nervous as all hell, looking down at her feet and shaking with nervousness. She hadn't even noticed Lycoris' predicament.

"This is Anne, Kryuger left her in our care and you are now responsible for taking care of her. No opting out of this." The man said.

The man nudged her toward Lycoris and her eyes shot up to the pie covered man. Her face lit up red.

"H-hello sir…" She said trying to hide her embarrassment.

The man then left without saying a word, any attempt to ask him anything was met with cold silence. The nun was still trying to collect herself after her prank, she had been rolling around on the floor since then, and only now had managed to pick herself up. Lycoris remembered that he still had to introduce himself.

"Hello Anne, im Lycoris, the souless devil over there is Persica." He said pointing to her, still sitting on the desk.

The nun finally picked herself up off the floor, and brushed off her outfit. She then kneeled down to the childs level.

"I am Persica's Persistent Perennial Public Petinent Personnel Prankster, or P7 for short." She said with a smile.

"N-nice to m-m-meet you…" The girl said meekly.

Lycoris had no idea how to take care of a child, and neither did Persica. He had no idea why IOP had decided they were best suited to this task, but he had no choice on the matter it seeemed. Life was about to get much more complicated.


	6. Part VI

Lycoris made his way into the lab, groggy as ever. The coffee this morning seemed to have the odd property of lacking any and all caffeine, meaning that he had about as much energy as a fasting sloth. If it was a normal day he could probably get over it easily, it was not as if there was anything urgent going on that day, or in the near future. They were wrapping up the prototype phase and were moving on to the actual design process. Artists were now getting involved working on the concept art for the dolls themselves, which would then come back to the lab to be worked into full designs, which put a large gap between any actual work on their part.

Lycoris entered the room, seeing Persica and Anne talking to each other. Anne was the new intern, she had been placed under the care of Kryuger who placed her under the care of IOP who placed her under the care of Persica and Lycoris. Thinking about it made his head spin. Anne was a shy young girl, she was about 15 and lacked any and all self-confidence. The psych eval said she had residual emotional trauma from the death of her parents, so he couldn't exactly hold her accountable for that. She was rather smart, however, and took to the work she was given well, not that it was all that complicated.

Lycoris approached the two, rubbing his eyes as he jutted himself into the conversation.

"What's going on you two." He said, yawning.

"Uh-uhhh- Mr. Kryuger said that he wanted to train me…" Anne replied nervously.

Lycoris' eyes shot open, any remnants of exhaustion left his body at that statement. He remembered the "training" he had received under Kryuger. It was more like torture. He sent him out into the woods near naked to hike kilometers through feet of snow in order to reach some godforsaken flag while being chased by armed SWAT guys and an attack helicopter. He could not let this young girl go through that.

P7 came out from the back room saying some sort of prayer, followed by a few forest animals. She approached the group, doing a little spin before speaking.

"How is it going here," She said enthusiastically.

"Oh, well, Anne is waiting for Kryuger to come to pick her up for her training," Persica replied with a dry snicker.

Lycoris without thinking grabbed Anne's hand and ran with her out of the room.

"Mr. Ly-lycoris, where are we going?" Anne asked

"ANYWHERE BUT THERE!"

Lycoris had never run that far in his life, somehow his normally unathletic body pushed itself with the threat of this young girl he just met being put through the same hell he had gone through.

"O-ok."

"HAVE FUN LYCORIS!" Persica shouted as they ran out.

Lycoris had to find a place where he could hide her from Kryuger. He could be there any minute. He knew that the compound had a panic room just in case one of the sides of the war decided to bomb the place for one reason or another. There was no way he could get in there.

Somehow Lycoris managed to run all the way there, running into the room, shutting the massive vault doors before Anne could question him. The room was set up like a meeting room, with a large table surrounded by chairs on all side, with doors leading to various living arrangements scattered about. Systems showed that there was nobody but them in the panic room. He took a seat at the table, panting from exhaustion. He had run more than he had ever run in his life. He was panting like a sick dog.

He planted his face into the wooden table, seating like a horse when he heard a familiar gravelly voice.

"Nice room you got here."

Lycoris struggled to sit up, as he saw Kryuger himself inspecting the room. He did not have the energy to be surprised.

"How… Did… You… Get… In… Here" He managed to say in between his heavy breaths.

"Through the door."

Lycoris had no energy left to fight it anymore, he was on the verge of passing out from exhaustion.

"Ready to go Anne?"

"I… I guess so Mr. Kryuger…" She said.

He then finally blacked out.

When he awoke he was back in the infirmary, looking at his watch it was a full day later. Was that run really that bad for him? The nurse swung over from her desk when she saw he was awake.

"Hello, nurse." Lycoris said

"Hello Mr. Lycoris, how are you feeling?"

"Like I just slept for 24 hours."

"Alright sounds about right. I really do recommend you start exercising more, the amount of effort you put in was not near enough to make a healthy person pass out."

"I know."

"Oh, by the way, you have a visitor." She said, pointing to the young girl in the corner of the room.

That young girl was Anne, but she was almost completely different than when she left. She oozed confidence, every aspect of her showed power and authority. Not even normal power and authority, it was like she had enough power to crack mountains in two and obliterate armies with a mere glare.

"Hi, Lycoris. You really need to get in shape, we can't have you passing out like that again." She said.

He was dumbfounded, this was not the same girl that he knew before, it was like everything about her changed overnight, all that trauma just wiped away.

"I suppose so." He replied.

"By the way, I finished all my work for the week, wasn't even that hard, took like an hour. Anyway, see ya, Persica sends her regards."

Lycoris was so confused, his head swimming so much, he fell back against the pillow and stared at the ceiling for the rest of the day. He could not even begin to comprehend the events of the past 24 hours, and he had the feeling he never would.


End file.
